Honors LA 11

Uncle Toms Character Report

Riley Johnston

Introduction
Eliza is so inspirational and heroic, anyone with the right mind would choose her
as one of their favorite character. Her whole story is one big exciting, lively, moving,
spine-tingling, mind-blowing thrill. Although, some of the stunts that she tried to pull
were stupid and witless, she managed to get through the whole thing, while still having
her son right next to her and all times. Eliza Harris, the romantic heroine of Uncle Tom's
Cabin (Nereson).
Slavery would have been considered the worst disaster in the history of events. The
malicious being of the whole shebang and the humans being okay with the fact of nonwhites treating blacks as animals. Black or White should have never compared against
each other in the twentieth century. (Figure 1) Autobiographies of suicide, even killing
their loved ones to not have them from the untold stories that were not uncommon in
Northern part of America. A woman such as Eliza Harris went through these things, the
reason being, the brave leap she took from the south to the north bank river. For herself,
and for her only, and youngest child.
Eliza Harris was the hard working slave to Thomas Davis, an owner of a plantation
conveniently near Dover, Kentucky. This female slave had been revealed to the fact that
her master had an arrangement planned to sell her poor baby boy to another master. I
have lost two, one after another,--left 'em buried there when I came away; and I had only
this one left. I never slept a night without him; he was all I had. He was my comfort and
pride, day and night; and, ma'am, they were going to take him away from me,--to sell
him,--sell him down south, ma'am, to go all alone,--a baby that had never been away
from his mother in his life! (Stowe 85). A very beautiful female slave, such as herself,
had been prized to be a helper around the house, or a servant to the wife of the slave
owner, or even a servant to the slave owner. She had it better than most of the slaves she

was sold with. It is not illegal to physically abuse a slave; in fact, you have no rights
under the law at all. No matter what is done to you, you cannot call the police or take
someone to court (The Horror of Slavery, 2014.)
In the year 1838, right before her death, she was to be put into jail, and to wait for the
slave haulage. But before any of that could happen she heroically grabbed her child and
fled the scene. She figured that if she could get passed the river, her chances of never
having her son be sold would be greatly increased or greatly trialed. Trying to find shelter
from the cold, she decided to take her chances with her son, and explore a nearby cabin.
She was provided with somewhere to live,food, and clothing by a warm hearted stranger.
After staying in the house the kind White man offered, she heard the loud loud barking,
and noise of dogs, she knew that they were coming after her and her little boy. She
grabbed her young, oblivious child and dashed for hope from the river, with the coursers
close behind, in desperation and anticipatory, she went onto the melted block of ice and
hurtled from iceberg, to iceberg until she reached the end of the river. (Figure 2) The
cult of true womanhood bars Eliza from full participation in the political freedom she has
risked her life to win (MacFarlane). Out of the darkness arose a hand that hauled her up
from the freezing water. The helping hand was an Ohio officer named Haley. He then
assisted her to the residence of John Rankin.
It was thought to be not very safe or smart for her to stay any longer. After being
supplied with clothes that werent wet and decent food, she was located from train station
to train station until she ended at the house of Levis Coffin located in Newport. From
there she was then sent by Coffin to a Black settlement closely related to Greenville, from
Greenville she was then transported to Sandusky, Ohio which lead them onto a steamboat
headed for Canada. Slaves would do anything to make sure they werent caught when
they ran away. Such as, being encouraged to look like a man and cut all of her hair off,
while her young innocent son would have to have been dolled up as a little girl to make
sure they wouldnt get caught (Stowe). They fortuitously loaded onto a steamboat in
Sandusky near Greenville, and their lives were shifted across Lake Erie all the way to
Canada. Their first settling was on Pelee Island located directly on Canadian soil and she
eventually settled and founded a house for her and her son in the city of Chatham,

Ontario. Not to long after she was settled, they were gladly surprised to see Levi Coffin
(an abolitionist, and someone deeply involved with the underground railroad) and his
wife visiting Chatham, Canada, while they were there visiting Eliza and her son, they
decided to be apart of a Native American church meeting. Eliza offered them to stay at
her house and found it to be a very comfortable, contented, and safe environment for
Eliza, her son, and for their visit to Canada.
Although Eliza was safe, that doesnt mean that other slaves were too.
There were many other slaves that were hanging onto their life, from being beaten for not
following the rules, having horrible slave owners also contributed to these actions, also
not having their freedom.Black people who were enslaved in the South (The Horror of
Slavery, 2015). The way that the United States treated these people were astonishing,
and a little aggravating. In no way should they have been treated like that. They arent
some being seen on the street, they are like every other existing, living human being on
this Earth. It aggravated people like Levi Coffin, an abolitionist, and an American
Quaker. They wanted to stop discrimination against blacks, not only was it wrong, but it
was also a stupid thing that we as Americans did in the past, and still do today. The past
has changed, but the future doesnt seem to be changing for us. Us as Americans will still
be fighting to not pass laws, and regulations that need to be passed. Harriet Beecher
Stowe the author of Uncle Toms Cabin had everyone thinking that she started the Civil
War, and hopefully everyone understands that it was a great thing to happen to
Americans.

Works Cited

Nereson, Ariel. "Counterfactual Moving In Bill T. Jones's Last Supper At Uncle

Tom's
Cabin/The Promised Land. Ebscohost. Theatre Survey. May. 2015. Web. 28
Nov.
2015.
Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Toms Cabin: Negro Life in the Slave States of
America. Canterbury:
Wordsworth Classics, 1995. Print.
The Horror of Slavery. Ebscohost. Scholastic Scope. Jan. 2014. Web. 30 Nov.
2015.
MacFarlane, Lisa Watt. If ever I get to where I can: The competing rhetorics
of social reform
in Uncle Tom's Cabin. Ebscohost. ATQ. Jun. 2009. Web. 1 Dec. 2015